First observation of the hyperfine splitting in antihydrogen

Swansea University scientists working at CERN have again made a landmark finding, taking them one step closer to answering the question of why matter exists and illuminating the mysteries of the Big Bang and the birth of the Universe.

In their paper published in Nature the physicists from the University's College of Science, working with an international collaborative team at CERN, describe the first observation of spectral line shapes in antihydrogen, the antimatter equivalent of hydrogen.

Professor Mike Charlton said: "The existence of antimatter is well established in physics, and it is buried deep in the heart of some of the most successful theories ever developed. But we have yet to answer a central question of why didn't matter and antimatter, which it is believed were created in equal amounts when the Big Bang started the Universe, mutually self-annihilate?

"We also have yet to address why there is any matter left in the Universe at all. This conundrum is one of the central open questions in fundamental science, and one way to search for the answer is to bring the power of precision atomic physics to bear upon antimatter."

It has long been established that any excited atom will reach its lowest state by emitting photons, and the spectrum of light and microwaves emitted from them represents a kind of atomic fingerprint and it is a unique identifier. The most familiar everyday example is the orange of the sodium streetlights.

Hydrogen has its own spectrum and, as the simplest and most abundant atom in the Universe, it holds a special place in physics. The properties of the hydrogen atom are known with high accuracy. The one looked at in this paper concerns the so-called hyperfine splitting, which in the case of hydrogen has been determined with a precision of one part in ten trillion. This transition is used these days in modern navigation and geo-positioning.

The team have made antihydrogen by replacing the proton nucleus of the ordinary atom by an antiproton, while the electron has been substituted by a positron. Last year, in ground-breaking work published in Nature, the team used UV light to detect the so-called 1S-2S transition between positron energy levels. Now, the team has used microwaves to flip the spin of the positron. This resulted not only in the first precise determination of the antihydrogen hyperfine splitting, but also the first antimatter transition line shape, a plot of the spin flip probability versus the microwave frequency. If there is a difference between matter and antimatter, it could be found in tiny differences between this line shape in hydrogen and antihydrogen.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Swansea University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

First, as for the global residential Brass Rods industry, the industry concentration rate is highly dispersed. The top 5 manufacturers have 30.61% sales revenue market share in 2017. The Wieland which has 7.62% sales market share in 2017, is the leader in the Brass Rods industry. The manufacturers following Wieland are Daechang and KME, which respectively has 6.51% and 6.46% sales market share globally.
Browse Related Reports:
Global Brass Rods Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022
Global (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) Brass Rods Market 2017 Forecast to 2022
Second, the global consumption of Brass Rods products rises up from 2380 K Ton in 2012 to 2840 K Ton in 2017, with CAGR of 4.52%. At the same time, the revenue of world Brass Rods sales market has a rise from 11807.52 M USD to 13683.32 M USD. The reason causes this increase is the growing demand for the Brass Rods products, which is the result of the spurring needs of downstream customers, especially for Automobile.
Third, as for the Brass Rods market, it will still show slow growth, and technological trends in the market will stay stable.
Fourth, market growth for Brass Rods is expected to growth at a CAGR of 3.17% from 2017 to 2022, reaching 16567.95 M USD by 2022.
GLOBAL INFO RESEARCH ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Contact us:
Tel:00852-58197708 (HK)
Email:sales@globalinforesearch.com